The Black Death or bubonic plague arrived in Italy in 1347, spread by merchant ships coming
from eastern commercial port cities like Constantinople.
The plague rapidly spread through Europe,
following the trade routes along which expanding and densely populated urban
centers were located. Within a hundred year period, the disease reduced Europe’s population of approximately 75 million by a
third. As the plague frequently returned, some cities lost over fifty per cent
of the inhabitants. Commenting on the early responses, Brian Tierney and Sidney
Painter state that, “It is not surprising that some of the first reactions to
the Black Death were marked by a sort of pathological irrationality.”
Danse Macabe throughout
Fourteenth Century Europe
Visitors to Europe can travel
from Paris to Luebeck and on to Tallinn and view the murals dedicated to the
plague years, the danse macabe or
dance of death. The frescoes and woodcuts are a reminder that the plague was no
respecter of persons. Dancing skeletons hold the hands of popes and bishops,
kings and queens, merchants and peasants. When the plague swept through Avignon in southern France, half of the College of
Cardinals succumbed. Because the church was deeply involved with the dieing and
with dispensing medical relief, albeit very primitive by modern standards,
members of the Catholic clergy were reduced by such numbers that subsequent
standards for ordination to replace the dead were lowered.
No one knew what caused the
plague, which had begun in China
and made its way west over the Silk Road and through the Crimea.
Scholars at the University
of Paris blamed unusual
planetary conjunctions that ultimately emitted poisonous vapors. Poison seemed
a logical answer and many Europeans, notably in Germany, blamed the Jews, asserting
that they had poisoned the wells. Massacres of Jews followed, despite earnest
attempts by the Catholic Church to suppress the persecutions.
In most cases, death was
swift. Although there were several varieties or strains of the disease, pneumonic
plague, which affected the lungs, is considered to be the deadliest. Plague
symptoms included high fever and a swelling of the lymph nodes. The disease was
spread by fleas, living on black rats. In London,
the plague was blamed on cats – long associated in Europe
with evil. Huge bonfires consumed the cats, causing the rat population to grow.
Results of the Plague Years
in Europe
In some areas, such as in England, the
plague left small hamlets deserted. The shortage of farm laborers forced some
landowners to raise sheep, beginning, perhaps, a process that would culminate
in the rise of English textiles centuries later. Additionally, worker shortages
had the impact of increased overall wages. Fewer workers forced employers to
pay more for daily labor. As the population corrected itself, these wages would
be cut, prompting peasant revolts in several sections of Europe.
The plague also renewed
interest in religion and death. Groups of people known as flagellants marched through cities flogging themselves in an orgy
of blood and pain, hoping to appease an obviously angry God who was calling
people to repentance. With religion came superstition and local remedies as old
as pre-Christian Europe. Rhymes like Ring
around the rosy date back to the plague in London, ending with the line,
“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down,” referring to the certain death that came in a
city that some scholars say suffered a 60% population loss.
Charms and amulets were worn
to protect against the plague, a favorite charm inscribed with the magical word
“abracadabra.” A reverse pyramid decreased the word to a simple “a,” symbolic
of the shrinking of plague symptoms. Ultimately, the plague ran its course,
returning to some regions briefly. Europe’s
population would return to normal growth patterns by 1450.
Sources:
Giulia Calvi, Histories of a Plague Year: the Social and
the Imaginary in Baroque Florence
(University of California Press, 1989).
William H. McNeill, Plagues and People (Anchor
Press/Doubleday, 1976).
Brian Tierney and Sidney
Painter, Western
Europe in the Middle
Ages 300-1475 (McGraw-Hill, 1992) p 482.
Philip Ziegler, The Black Death (Harper & Row,
1969).
See also “Totentanz.”
Although in German, the site provides good images of the various Dance of Death
murals.
